


when we were young and unafraid

by alynshir



Series: mahariel march 2020 [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: F/F, Huddling For Warmth, Hurt/Comfort, Temple of Sacred Ashes (Dragon Age), mahariel march, maharielmarch, morrigan and shay discuss who shay saw in the temple ruins, shorrigan, the gauntlet but make it personalized, this is literally the definition of a hurt comfort fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-02
Updated: 2020-03-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:41:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22984192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alynshir/pseuds/alynshir
Summary: Shay Mahariel has an additional spectral visitor when she leads her party through the Gauntlet of Sacred Ashes, and Morrigan knows an old, festering wound when she sees it.Mahariel March 2020 Day 1: Before
Relationships: Female Mahariel/Isene Alerion, Female Mahariel/Morrigan (Dragon Age), Female Mahariel/OC, Morrigan/Female Warden (Dragon Age)
Series: mahariel march 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1651786
Comments: 6
Kudos: 32





	1. of ruin

**Author's Note:**

> hello this is day 1 of Mahariel March, a month-long creative challenge myself and honey @amorezevran on twit / @rivainitea here created and are participating in! 
> 
> for more info on the challenge / a prompt list, come check it out on my twitter @witchesgonewild! it's pinned to my profile :D

_ “Was it worth it?”  _

_ Shay said nothing, her bow readied, an arrow nocked. The two specters, as far as Morrigan could tell, were both Dalish, like Shay; one a man with short blond hair and shadows of tattoos, and one a woman, with curling, dark hair and an unmarked face.  _

_ “Was all of this worth us?” the man asked, crossing his arms. “I had a life, you know. I wanted to live it. You took it away from me. You got to live instead. Why did you deserve it and not me?” _

_ “It was your choice,” Shay said, so quiet Morrigan could barely hear it, her voice low, painfully measured. “I told you not to. It wasn’t my fault.” _

_ “And what about me?” the woman asked, stepping forward, her arms hanging free by her sides, a bird ready to leap into flight. Shay lowered her bow, inexplicably, and Morrigan instinctively moved forward, her hand tightening on her staff, but Alistair put his arm out slowly, blocking her. Morrigan went to shove him away, but Shay glanced back for a moment, and whatever Morrigan had been about to say trickled away, her voice lost somewhere in the back of her throat as Shay said, in that quiet way, no, stay back. _

_ “And what about me, lethallan?” the spectral woman asked again, her ghoulish lip curling up to bare her teeth. “I didn’t even get to live a life. I wanted to be something. Be someone! Didn’t you know that? Didn’t you care enough to keep me safe?” _

_ “It wasn’t my fault,” Shay said again, turning back to face the woman, but Morrigan heard the way her voice pulled tight, “I tried.” _

_ “Trying didn’t keep us alive,” the ghost scoffed. “Do you think trying will keep your new friends alive? Did you not try hard enough with us? Or did you just not care?” _

_ "Isene,” Shay said, the arrow slipping from her fingers with a clatter to the stone, and Morrigan felt something in her stomach twist at the way the warden said the woman’s name. “I…” _

_ “Was that it, in the end?” the ghost murmured, a soft smile growing out of the sneer, moving closer with silent steps, “it was that you didn’t care, wasn’t it? That when it came down to it, you let us die to save yourself. It always was a competition with us two, wasn’t it? I guess you won. Congratulations,  _ **_vhenan_ ** **.”** _ The ghost sneered the last word, venom dripping from it, and Morrigan for the first time, saw Shay Mahariel flinch. _

_ She reached forward, her shimmering hands reaching to touch Shay’s face, and Shay didn’t move, frozen in place, her bow clenched uselessly. “Look at these.” Ghostly fingers traced the tattoos curling across Shay’s forehead and cheeks. “Beautiful. I always wanted these. You paid for yours in blood, didn’t you?” _

_ The hands tightened on Shay’s jaw, and the ghost’s eyes hardened. “Paid for it with my blood. My life. Paid for your new adventure with Tamlen’s.” _

_ “Get back,” Morrigan abruptly found herself shouting, finally, her voice returning from its walkabout, and the ghost jerked away from Shay, its glowing eyes locking onto her for just a single burning moment before looking back to Shay, who had snatched up her arrow from the floor and redrawn her bow. _

_ “I tried,” Shay said, her voice weak, but her weapon steady. “If it could have been me, it would have been. But it wasn’t. So I’m doing my best. Whatever good that turned out to be.” She glanced back to Leliana and Alistair, and to Morrigan, who could see a terrifying nothing in the Warden’s eyes. “Let’s go. We’re done here.” _


	2. of reparations

“Why do you keep staring at me?”

Morrigan lifted her chin a bit, purposely looking away at the flinty, unyielding expression from the Dalish elf.

The night had grown dark, darker, deep with night and stars, in the vertebrae of the Frostbacks, and the camp they’d made not far outside Haven had been wedged into what was only passable as a cave. Morrigan thought it was more of an overeager crack in the wall, but Shay had insisted by way of dropping her pack and starting to set up Wynne’s tent, and after the experience in the Gauntlet, Shay’s jaw may as well have been wired shut, and no one had been eager to argue with her. 

Leliana had woken Morrigan up in the dead of night with a gentle touch and concern in tired eyes. Apparently, she’d whispered, Shay had done first watch with Sten, had refused to let Alistair sit watch with Leliana, taken his position instead, and now wouldn’t let Zevran be woken, claiming his spot in the arranged watch he’d planned to take with Morrigan. And now, wedged across from each other in the narrow entrance of the cave, the night mountain winds whistling, Morrigan couldn’t help but stare a bit. It wasn’t  _ her _ fault that the Warden’s dark circles had become so deep that they looked more like bruises. Besides, she was allowed to be concerned, was she not? This person was her...friend, she supposed.

“I’m waiting,” Morrigan said instead, glancing out into the night as if disinterested.

Shay sighed, shifting a bit. Morrigan couldn’t tell if she was shivering. “For what?”

“You,” Morrigan said, letting her eyes slide back to the warden. “I am waiting for you to speak.”

Shay scoffed a bit, turning away. She didn’t say anything for a moment, but Morrigan could see what she wasn’t saying anyway, in the sharpness she looked away with, in the uneven press of her lips.  _ Stop looking,  _ she was saying,  _ stop looking.  _ “Okay. You’re waiting for me to speak. About what?”  _ I don’t want to be seen anymore, I don’t want to be known. _

Morrigan hesitated. “I know...talking is not always...what we do.”  _ Listen to me. _

Shay wouldn’t catch her eye, her elbows resting on her spread knees, her entire body tense, tired,  _ do we have to do this now, _ “So why start now? What if I don’t want to?”  _ I don’t want to. I don’t want to.  _

“And I did not ask what you wanted,” Morrigan retorted, raising an eyebrow at her even though she wouldn’t look.  _ This is about what I want. I want you to talk. _

Shay sighed, running a hand over her face, running a hand through the remains of the day’s updo, torn to scraggles by the wind and the mountains,  _ I don’t want to talk, talking hurts. _

“What on earth do you want me to talk about?”

“I want to know what happened. At the temple.” 

Shay’s jaw tensed, her eyes flickering uneasily to and away from the witch. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Morrigan gave her a long look that she knew usually would intimidate most, had there been any bite to it. “We have been over this. I don’t care what you want.”

Shay pressed her lips together, curling into herself a bit tighter. “You can’t make me tell you.”

Morrigan laughed. “Being stubborn. ‘Tis truly revolutionary. Let us be done with  _ that _ and move on to the matter at hand.”

Shay was quiet for a long moment, and Morrigan didn’t look away. The night winds whistled through the cracks and crevasses of the spine, and Morrigan thought in the faint distance, she could hear the alpine trees groaning. Perhaps those trees would come alive like the ones in the Brecilian, she thought, but perhaps not. It would be much harder to exact their roots from the ice and snow. Were she a tree, she might stay put too. 

Shay finally looked directly at her, exhaustion yawning in the darkness of her eyes, her forehead creasing, not saying anything, but asking anyway. Are _ you serious? _

Morrigan could feel her smile fading a bit, felt the harsh lines that she held so carefully, softening in a way she would be revolted by as was typical. Not now, however; If she was to talk, and if she was to convince her Warden to talk, it was likely wise to show softness. It had never been necessary between the two of them, softness, but as she looked at Shay, watched the shadows fatigue and something abyssal darken the planes of the Dalish elf’s face...perhaps it wasn’t about what was necessary. Perhaps it was about what was...kind. Flemeth would be laughing, if she could see. Morrigan let the smile fade, let her face stay as close as she had ever let it get to kind. No sneering, no quirked brows. ‘Twas an odd feeling in itself.  _ Talk to me. I will listen.  _

“Fine.” Shay pursed her lips, her jaw working. “I guess I should...start with Isene.”

Morrigan watched as Shay’s voice lingered on the name again, watched as she said it like she had back in the temple - as if saying it was some forbidden grace long since abandoned. Something in Morrigan’s chest twinged, a mimic of irritation for no apparent reason whatsoever. “The woman, I assume.”

“Yeah. The man was Tamlen.” The Warden let the name hang for a second longer, before a whistle of wind whisked it away. “He, um. died recently. I assume.” Shay turned away for a moment, and Morrigan saw her pressing her lips together, swallowing as much as she could manage. “We never...we looked, but we never found his body. But whatever happened to us gave us both Blight sickness, and they only found me. I became a Grey Warden, and he...died. That’s all there was to that.” 

Shay’s eyes flickered back towards Morrigan’s, and where there had been exhaustion and vacancy before, now all Morrigan could see was a wound, scabbing over, but still raw, still infected, still festering.  _ I don’t want to talk about Tamlen. I don’t want to talk about him right now. I can talk about Isene. I don’t want to talk about Tamlen. It’s too soon. _

Morrigan lowered her chin just a fraction; the barest hint of a nod she could muster.  _ I will listen now, and I will listen then, too.  _ “And Isene was…”

Shay sat back against the rock wall, shifting uncomfortably. Morrigan couldn’t tell if it was because of the subject, or the stone. Perhaps both. “Isene was, ah...my rival, I guess? And then she wasn’t. And then she was my...partner, for a while.” Shay swallowed again, and if Morrigan had blinked, she would have missed seeing the Warden’s entire body tense, missed seeing Shay close off abruptly, as quick as her arrows fly.  _ I can’t. Maybe I can’t. I can’t do this. _ “...And then she died. That’s it.”

The beat in Morrigan’s chest leapt up into her throat. scoffed, letting her face curl back into familiar skepticism, letting her lip curl into a crooked smirk, letting her eyebrows raise,  _ come back _ ,  _ come back _ . “You are not serious! That is  _ not _ it. I have told you many stories with much less reason to tell them.”

Shay blinked, and to Morrigan’s immense relief, she scowled.

“I don’t  _ have _ to tell you any of this,” Shay grumbled, but Morrigan couldn’t help her smile growing a bit as she watched the Warden break free, loosen from that sudden grasp, that sudden throttle of winter.

“I disagree.”

Shay gave her a look, but Morrigan could see the corners of her lips twitch reluctantly,  _ you wicked thing.  _ Morrigan raised her eyebrows, smirking, expectant,  _ I am what I am _ .

“...Fine. Whatever. Yeah. Isene and I met...I dunno, like, four years ago, maybe? Five? I was seventeen.” The Warden looked out into the night. “It was a bad winter. We weren’t from the same clan, and it’s kind of...a thing where clans don’t really intersect much. But that winter, our Keepers figured it would probably be better if we at least worked together to stay alive. Isene was one of the up and coming young hunters of her clan. I was  _ fen’nas _ .”

The term rang a distant bell in the back of Morrigan’s mind, but no direct translation came to mind.

“Fen’nas?”

Twin lights flickered in Shay’s eyes at the memory, something fond, something deep and affectionate.

“Wolf-hunters. There are some different perspectives on it. The main point everyone agrees on is that we’ve got...I dunno, ‘souls of wolves' or something. I don’t know about that personally, but... My clan says  _ fen’nas _ are the trickster god Fen’harel’s atonement for his deceptions. They say that the strongest wolves will find the strongest hunters and they will form an unbreakable bond, and that together the wolf and the hunter will be a pack of incredible strength.”

Morrigan considered Shay Mahariel for a moment, her head tilting to the side. 

Souls of wolves...Morrigan didn’t know how literally or metaphorically the Dalish meant it; in her experience thus far, much of the elvhen language was open to interpretation and intent, and she found it infuriatingly interesting to try and decode in any sort of objective, language-breaking matter. She’d tried to eavesdrop as much as possible in the Brecilian Dalish encampment, but the entire language felt like one of many inside jokes to her. But to have the soul of a wolf...that felt like something she could parse, something she could understand. And Shay was someone who she had always felt like she understood, in that way. She was quiet, she was strong, she had a silent humor that Morrigan felt and saw more of than she ever heard spoken, and she moved through the woods with the same ease Morrigan did… if Morrigan had subscribed to any of the typical human phrases she’d heard fools like Alistair utter, she might have called both of them lone wolves - but anyone who’d spent any time around wolves would know that a lone wolf was, ultimately, a dead wolf, and that wolves worked best in packs. And Shay had been so reclusive, so taciturn with her companions when first Morrigan had met her, but in the weeks, months to follow, Morrigan had noticed the elf’s shoulders had loosened, and her sleep, although often plagued by dreams of the archdemon, had come easier with each passing evening.

Soul of a wolf, indeed.

Shay cleared her throat, and Morrigan blinked, finding Shay looking at her, half-mimicking the head tilt, raising her eyebrows,  _ sovereign for your thoughts?  _

Morrigan shook her head a bit, offering only a little smile, as mysterious as she could make it,  _ five sovereigns, and no less.  _

Shay rolled her eyes.  _ You’re too expensive for me. _

“So you had...a wolf companion then?” Morrigan asked. Shay looked down at her hands, toying with the fraying, woven rope she always kept tied around her wrist, over her gauntlet. Morrigan noticed for the first time, tied flush against the leather, a small, chipped wolf’s fang.

“Yeah. Her name was Aridhel. Of the Fallows.” Shay smiled a little bit, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “She was my best friend.”

“She was a companion, then. As opposed to...dogs? Or was she like that?”

“It was more like…” Shay pursed her lips, thinking, and then unexpectedly, delightfully, grinned. “More like...coworkers? She was her own person. And I was mine. We disagreed sometimes. We worked well together, though. Through a lot of good times and hard ties. We’d been together since we were both...since I was a kid, and since she was really small.” Morrigan felt, nauseatingly, a stupid smile coming on, but before it could arrive, Shay’s own smile faded. “But that’s...not for now.”

Morrigan nodded. “Isene.”

“So…” Shay’s brow creased, remembering. “So Isene’s clan didn’t have  _ fen’nas.  _ Some do, some don’t. Some say it’s because Fen’harel doesn’t like all clans, some say it’s because Fen’harel gives wolves to those he trusts least. I think it’s just based on where the clan frequents. But, yeah. So her clan’s hunters and my clan’s  _ fen’nas _ ended up working together. We’d splinter off in mixed groups of my clan’s hunters and her clan’s hunters, so as a whole, we got the most effective coverage. I got paired off with Isene.”

* * *

_ “It won’t be bad,” Shay said, crouching at the edge of the camp clearing beside Aridhel, watching Marethari and Clan Alerion’s Keeper, talking to a small batch of Alerion hunters. Aridhel snorted, giving Shay a skeptical side-eye. “You’re such a pessimist. It’ll be fine. We’ll just get it done. It doesn’t matter who we get stuck with.” _

_ Shay watched as Marethari gave one of the Alerion hunters a nod, and a young woman bounded straight in her direction. _

_ “Be nice,” Shay muttered to Aridhel. Aridhel turned and huffed directly into Shay’s face in response. “Yeah. Real charming.” _

_ The woman approached, dark hair streaked with sunny gold, bouncing with each step, a round, mischievous face, eyes shining with confidence. _

_ “Nice to meet you,” she chirped, extending a hand for Shay to shake. “I’m Isene. I’m the best shot Alerion’s got. You’re lucky, my friend!” _

_ Shay glanced at Aridhel, who raised an eyebrow as much as a wolf possibly could, and then back to this new person, this Isene Alerion. _

_ “Yeah?” Shay asked, rising out of her crouch, reaching out and shaking her hand. "Lucky how?” _

_ Isene laughed, as if it was obvious, as if there were others around who would also laugh along with her, like it was obvious. _

_ “That you get to hunt with me!” _

_ Aridhel made a sound that sounded suspiciously like a barking laugh. _

_ “So you’re that good,” Shay mused, a faint smile tugging at her, reclaiming her hand, folding her arms across her chest, “yet your clan’s still starving enough to come crawling to us for help.” _

_ Isene made a surprised sound, her pretty face scrunching into an indignant scowl. _

_ “Hey, your clan is too.” She quirked a brow, her hands going to her hips. “You can’t even compensate for your own slack with a pack of wolves.” _

_ Aridhel let out a low growl towards Isene, whose eyes flickered to her in a way nearly reminiscent of disdain. Shay shrugged, in the most unbothered way she could.  _

_ “Hey, At least we have wolves. More than you can say.” _

_ “Shut up, I take it back,” Isene said, glaring at the both of them. “It’s not nice to meet you. Do I have to work with you?” _

_ Aridhel looked up at Shay, her pale green eyes irritated, as if asking the same thing. Shay glanced over towards Marethari, who was watching, and giving her the most hopeful, desperate smile Shay thought she’d ever seen on the Keeper. _

_ “Yep. Keeper says, it goes.” _

_ Isene grinned, although it was more a baring of teeth.  _

_ “Great! I’m going to make your life hell.” _

* * *

“So you...didn’t like each other,” Morrigan surmised, and Shay shrugged.

“Not at first. She had so much shit to say, at all times. She thought I was an asshole, and I thought she was an asshole.” After a beat, Shay chuckled, more to herself than anything. “She  _ was _ an asshole. But we had to deal with each other. So instead of just hating each other, we became...rivals, I guess? Everything was a competition.  _ Everything _ was a competition…”

* * *

_ "....and that's another for me,” Isene crowed from above as her shot struck true, dropping down from the tree, nearly landing on top of Shay and Aridhel. Aridel grumbled, whipping her tail away from Isene’s foot, where she’d missed by mere inches. Isene beamed at Shay, her crossbow jaunted in the air. “Catch  _ **_up_ ** _ , Mahariel!" _

_ Shay sighed, shouldering her bow for the moment, looking past Isene on purpose towards the rabbit Isene had managed to catch off guard. Aridhel huffed, and sent Shay a look that read the wolf’s opinion perfectly:  _ **_pure luck, I think._ **

_ "If you'd stop shouting, it'd make this a lot easier for both of us," Shay pointed out, moving past Isene, and Isene sprung into motion, loping easily alongside Shay, their feet crunching softly in the snow.  _

_ "You're just jealous because I'm gonna bring in more of a haul than you." _

_ Shay laughed. "Yep. You got it. I'm definitely jealous." _

_ Isene grinned, tossing her hair over her shoulder, striking a little pose in the ray of sunlight that streamed through the bare trees. "Hah. Knew it. Why wouldn't you be? Have you  _ **_seen_ ** _ me?" _

_ "Unfortunately, yes." _

_ "Oh come on,” Isene whined, gently bumping shoulders with Shay, “I'm not so bad looking, am I?" _

_ Shay rolled her eyes. "I'm not answering that."  _

_ Isene pouted. "Why not?" _

_ "Because I don't have to." _

_ "Yes you do!" _

_ "I so don't.” _

_ "Shay! Hey," Isene called, as Shay picked up her pace into a light run. _

_ "I'm  _ **_busy_ ** _ ,” Shay said, unable to keep a straight face as Isene ran after her. “I’m hunting.” A flash of movement caught the corner of her eye, and quick as she could, she grabbed her bow, drew back an arrow, and pivoted sharply to the right, shooting near-blindly into the brush. A satisfying thud sounded, and Shay turned to Isene, letting a smug smile curve onto her face. “That's another for me." _

_ "Oh - fenhedis lasa,” Isene swore, her hands punching to her hips. “Dammit. Well. I'm still winning." _

_ "Don't worry. When I win, you'll still be pretty." _

_ "Hah! So you  _ **_do_ ** _ think I'm pretty!” _

* * *

"She was really something,” Shay said, the corners of her eyes crinkling in a way Morrigan saw about as frequently as the Wilds saw sun in winter - rarely, desperately, “and it was a long winter. And as much shit as we both talked, we were good hunters trying to provide for our clans. We worked well together, and eventually it became less of a fight and more of a..team effort."

"And then?"

"The, uh…” Shay’s brow creased, thinking, and Morrigan watched, patient. This was the most she’d ever heard the Warden speak in one sitting, and the woman’s speech betrayed it; at first rife with lost threads, fragments, and rust, although at moments Morrigan could see glimmers of it warming up into a fine instrument. Something about it, though, kindled a pleasant little feeling, perhaps similar to a little bird, in her chest. _A little bird?_ Where had _that_ come from? Such a thing sounded incredibly uncomfortable to have caged in one’s chest. 

“So the winter ended. And our clans were gonna go their own ways again, which was...good. In theory. But at that point…” Shay trailed off again, the storytelling fading from her, and she looked at Morrigan with an echo of an ache in her eyes again,  _ do I have to keep talking? _

Morrigan just nodded.  _ Yes.  _ "But by then you had grown...attached, yes?"

"Yeah.” Shay sat back, resigned. “I'd say so."

* * *

_ "So..." _

_ Shay looked at her feet, finally free of winter wrappings. When she looked up, Isene was watching her, eyes bright, shining, beautiful, wringing her hands. _

_ "Thaw hit," Shay said finally, and Isene looked down, lips pressed together. "You know when you're leaving?" _

_ "The aravels are already being packed,” Isene said after a minute, looking up at her, reluctance plain as spring on her freckled face. “We're supposed to be heading further north. Somewhere warm."  _

_ "That’ll be nice,” Shay said, not meaning it at all, “I think we're going east. We're always, um. East this time of year." _

_ "Yeah." _

_ "So, uh." _

_ And almost in the blink of an eye, Isene surged forward - or maybe Shay’d been the one to move, and Isene was kissing her, and Shay had never kissed anyone before, had never thought about it until Isene, and Isene was laughing against her lips in that infuriating way, and Shay never wanted to think about it with anyone else again. _

* * *

"After that, we were kind of together ever since. Every year at some point our clans would pass each other by. Never banded together like before, but the business relationship was good, you know? So we'd always have time together. And…” Shay hesitated. “I was gonna ask her to stay with my clan. Stay with me. Every year I was gonna ask. But I never did."

"Why not?"

Shay shrugged. "Guess I figured she'd say no. She loved her life. Her clan. Her family and friends.” She leaned her head back against the rock, staring up through the narrow ravine’s opening towards the darkness, and the snow, and the whistling of wind. _I knew I'd always be second, I’d never be her first choice._ “She had so much going on for her. She wanted every drop of life she could get.” She glanced over at Morrigan, her eyes half-lidded. _I’d never be enough for her. But maybe that's not fair to put on her. That’s just me._

Morrigan pursed her lips, thoughtful, and shrugged in kind. _ Maybe not fair. But opinions are by nature, unfair, and fair in their own right. _

"Yeah. So I didn't say anything. Things were fine. It was fine. I had her, and I had Ari. I didn't need anything else."

Shay didn’t say anything else, letting the silence hang. A squall of snow came spiraling into the ravine, and Morrigan curled in a bit closer to herself, half-dreading the words she could feel needed to be said. "And now you have neither."

"Yeah."

Morrigan bit the inside of her cheek, her stomach twisting a bit even as she spoke. She wanted to know, but there was something awful in Shay’s face that made it feel like twisting the dagger even more. But...no. It needed to be asked. Morrigan didn’t think Shay had ever spoken about this, and she was no expert on healing, but in the realm of the physical… if there was poison, if there was disease and rot, it needed to be purged before the wound could heal. Perhaps it was the same with wounds of the mind. She needed to ask. "What happened? What changed?"

Shay’s eyes focused on Morrigan, and she sat up a bit, her brows drawing together. "You're shivering."

Morrigan was, in fact, but she crossed her arms anyway, haughtily as if she wasn’t, and how dare anyone imply otherwise.

"I am not.”

Shay raised an eyebrow.  _ Really? You’re really going to try? I have eyes.  _ "You're wearing a hood and an Orlesian bathing suit for a shirt. Hold on."

Shay stood up, heading the short distance back towards the rest of the campsite, becoming a silhouette against the quiet firelight as she crouched down and began looking for something. Morrigan couldn’t see what, but another sharp wind whistled through, chilling her to the bone, so she just hunched closer together and tried to look cavalier about it.

"An Orlesian bathing suit?" Morrigan called, indignant, and even quietly, Shay’s soft chuckle carried over.

"Yeah, you'd love them. They cover absolutely nothing and do nothing for you when you're in the mountains."

Morrigan scrunched up her face as Shay made her way back over, one of Leliana’s spare blankets tossed over one shoulder. "I grew up in a frozen swamp. And you have no cloak either, might I point out."

Shay rolled her eyes.  _ Just because you grew up cold doesn’t mean you’re not still cold. Stupid.  _ Sitting herself down, this time beside Morrigan instead of across from her, Shay draping the blanket around herself, and tossed both the blanket and her arm gently across Morrigan’s shoulders.

“What, dare I ask, are you doing?” Morrigan asked, testily, but truth be told, Shay was like a campfire in herself, and nothing had ever given Morrigan, at least, pause on physically interacting with the Warden. Physicality had never been Morrigan’s strong suit, truth be told; it was always odd to her how people in groups behaved so touchily, but...maybe it was something about having spent three days in their earliest frame of knowing each other, putting the elf’s innards back where they belonged. Or perhaps it was simply not so strange. Morrigan decided she was banking on the former.

"Shut up,” Shay said in response, or lack thereof, gently pulling Morrigan closer. “Come here. I’m cold too.”  _ See, compromise. _

“Hah,” Morrigan retorted, “I was right.”  _ So there. _

Shay just looked at her, with something soft and deeply exasperated that Morrigan had never noticed before, but struck her as deeply familiar to see on Shay’s face. Whatever it was, Morrigan decided to lose the argument she hadn't even found it in her to be particularly opposed to, and shifted closer. Shay finished wrapping the blanket around both of them completely, passing one end of it to Morrigan and holding the other end closed around them with her far hand. For the first time since they had entered the mountains, Morrigan found herself completely stilled from shivering.

"So what happened?" she finally asked again, and although now it was harder to see Shay, she felt her sigh, felt Shay lean back against the rocks.

"So, the clans passed by again. We'd been doing our thing for a few years. I'd just turned twenty, I think. We were hunting together. It wasn't a serious hunt. It wasn't supposed to be anything."

* * *

_ Isene let out a dramatic groan, breaking away from Shay’s arms, catching her hand and tugging her along, smiling. "Come on. We're not going to catch anything if we don't keep moving." _

_ Shay, grinning tugged her back, back closer, back into another kiss. "I know. Maybe we don't catch anything." _

_ Isene laughed, leaning up and kissing her on the tip of her nose. "You're cute when you try and pretend to shirk responsibility." _

_ Shay raised an eyebrow at her. "I can shirk." _

_ Isene laughed again, louder, gently shoving her away. "No you can't, lethallan. You couldn't shirk responsibility if you tried." _

_ "That's not true." _

_ "We've been together for years, Mahariel,” Isene drawled, reaching up and pinching Shay’s cheek affectionately. “I know you. The edge is not where you live. I drag you there." _

_ With that, Isene started walking away, but Shay caught up, wrapping her arms around Isene’s waist and leaning forward to kiss her cheek loudly. As she did every time Shay did such a thing, Isene let out a loud giggle of surprise, leaning back into Shay’s arms, leaning up to kiss her. _

_ "I can be irresponsible,” Shay murmured into Isene’s ear, grinning, “I don't skip out on things because I don't see a point. Maybe today I want to skip out.” Isene turned around to face her, reaching up and draping her arms around Shay’s neck. “I see a lot of good reasons." _

_ Isene fluttered her eyelashes. "Mm. Tempting." _

_ Shay sighed, reaching up with one hand to touch Isene’s face. "Wish you were staying longer." _

_ "Maybe I'll catch up to the clan in a few days,” Isene mused, leaning into her touch, closing her eyes for a second. “Wanna stay with you a little longer. I love being irresponsible." _

_ Shay hesitated. Suddenly, she could feel blood pounding in her ears. Was this the time? Was it a bad idea to even say anything? "You could, yknow." _

_ Isene looked up at Shay. "Could what?" _

_ “Um,” Shay said, her mind scrambling to find something, anything to say to explain what she wanted in a way that wasn’t stupid, but Isene’s eyes broke away from hers, to look over her shoulder, and her brow furrowed.  _

_ "What's that?" Isene said, pointing up over Shay’s shoulder, and Shay let Isene go, face burning, looking into the summer woods to see. A flash of metal caught her eye almost immediately. _

_ "Looks like traps," Shay said slowly, and Isene’s hand went to grab her crossbow. _

_ "These aren't ours. Or yours, are they?" _

_ "No. These are shem traps." _

* * *

"We followed the traps and found a band of...I don't know what they were. Mercenaries? Bandits? Just a group of human hunters?” Morrigan could see Shay trying not to clench her teeth, could see her fighting to keep a neutral expression. “There were a lot of them. And not a lot of us. And to them, we were two little rabbits stealing from them.” Shay’s nostrils flared.  _ As if the forest hadn't been Dalish long before they'd been born. As if you can own that. _ “And, uh."

"And then what?" Morrigan prompted, after a moment, unable to bring herself to ask louder than a murmur. Shay looked down, the hand that wasn’t on Morrigan’s far shoulder coming up to drum nervously on her knee, and Morrigan found herself shifting a bit closer to Shay without particularly deciding to do so.

"It was a fight,” Shay said, her voice stumbling, trying to flatten but failing, “and it was bad. Isene, she...she went down, and then...I don't remember a lot of it. And then Ari dragged me away and disappeared. Isene died. I didn't die. I almost did." She didn’t look at Morrigan, then, but Morrigan could hear it clear as day:  _ I should have. I wish it were me. I wish it were me. _

Morrigan didn’t say anything, and neither did Shay, and for a few minutes, it was quiet, save for the keening of the wind. 

"I tried,” Shay said, her voice cracking, and despite the years of learned discomfort at, oh...feelings of such a kind, Morrigan felt something in her chest crack too at the sound in the voice of the Warden who was always so steady, so grounded, so sure-footed. “I really tried to save her. But I couldn't. I saved myself, not her. So maybe she was right, back at the temple. All that stuff she said.”

Morrigan sat up a bit at that, trying to wrap her head around the insanity of the notion that Shay was presenting to her.

"No,” Morrigan said, “No. For one, that was not her. That was a perversion of a ghost, meant to hurt you. But even if it wasn’t…” She trailed off for a moment, trying to find the right words. “You didn't...choose yourself over either of them. You fought until you could no longer, and then you were saved by someone else, because you were the only one who could be saved. ‘Twas simply not your choice to make. The world turns regardless of what you do. Things happen out of your control.”

"I could have done more,” Shay said, although her eyes flickered to Morrigan’s, and there was a sliver of bronze-shining doubt, caught by firelight, that Morrigan wanted to grab onto with both hands. “I could have... fought harder to keep them away from Isene. I could have put myself between Tam and that stupid mirror.” Shay looked away, out into the night, and Morrigan could see her throat bob, could see the faintest hints of Shay’s eyes crinkling into what could have been a smile, or a grimace. “He would have loved being a Grey Warden." 

"But,” Morrigan said, reaching out on an instinct she didn’t know she had, her hand coming up to rest on top of Shay’s, “here you are, with you the Warden.” Shay turned to face Morrigan again, and Morrigan saw the elf’s eyes shining perhaps too brightly to be from the fire. “You cannot change what happened. I....will not pretend to know how to fix this. Because it is not fixable. You can do nothing but move forward. And you did, in the temple. You told them you had done your best and were continuing to do so.” Morrigan paused. “Is that not what those who care for you would have wanted for you?"

Shay was quiet for a long moment, and after a few beats of Morrigan suddenly worrying perhaps she’d said the wrong thing, and cursing internally for trying to help, for trying to fix something she clearly didn’t understand, for trying to claim something so stupid as familiarity enough to say such things to someone… Morrigan felt Shay let out a long, tired breath that she must have been holding all night, or maybe longer, and felt Shay’s arm tighten ever so slightly around Morrigan’s shoulders...a squeeze if anything. Not quite an embrace, Morrigan didn’t think, but then, she wasn’t sure that the Warden was the embracing type, nor did she know if she herself was one.

"Yeah,” Shay sighed. “Yeah. Isene was never...resentful like that. She was always onto the next thing. She wouldn't have..."

Morrigan tightened her hand atop Shay’s. "They were meant to turn you away from the temple. And they did not. It was a victory, back there. I think, if you did not know at your core that you were not at fault, you would have turned back."

Shay let out a shadow of a laugh - something dark, but something clear - and leaned back, against the crevasse, against Morrigan’s shoulder.

"I think it's more that I was lucky you were there,” Shay said, and for the first time all evening, Morrigan noticed Shay fighting a yawn.

"Hm?"

Morrigan felt Shay’s voice more than she heard it, quiet, tired, amused. "You shouted at them, remember? You literally shouted at the ghosts of my past."

Morrigan pursed her lips. "I simply do not remember doing any such thing." She felt Shay smile in the way she shifted, in her voice.

"You definitely did.”

Shay went silent then, and so did Morrigan, having no clever thing or otherwise left to ask. Morrigan listened to the wind whistle from the safety of within the blanket, under Shay’s arm, watched as the faintest hints of day began to break through the mountain night.

"I think I’m tired of feeling guilty,” Shay said, after a long time.

"Then rest.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if u like / wanna smack me pls leave a comment :) come hang out w me on twitter @witchesgonewild

**Author's Note:**

> pls leave a comment if u liked what u have seen! alternatively leave a comment if u want to punch me for being mean. both are acceptable currency here :]


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